Rocket man: How does Elbow's lead singer Guy Garvey remain so down to earth? | The Independent Rocket man: How does Elbow's lead singer Guy Garvey remain so down to earth? Their soaring anthems have propelled them into the indie-rock stratosphere Saturday 4 June 2011 23:00 BST Click to follow Rocket man: How does Elbow's lead singer Guy Garvey remain so down to earth? 1/2 2/2 PA Men with beards, the five members of Elbow shuffle unassumingly on to the stage at London's O2 Arena to the deafening cheers of a crowd that clearly obsesses over their favourite band the way 14-year-old girls do Justin Bieber. It's a winningly incongruous sight: lip-quivering admiration for five blokes who, though they may dress in Liam Gallagher's sharp Pretty Green label, nevertheless look more like his shambolic uncle than they do his peers. But with Elbow, it's all about the music, and the music is wrought and majestic and far too subtle, strictly speaking, for enormodomes such as this.

Over the next two hours tonight, on this cold March evening, the mood they elicit from these 10,000 thirtysomethings is one of slack-jawed awe, the goosebumps frequently giving way to actual tears. It is this collective outpouring of emotion that lends added poignancy to singer Guy Garvey's regular query from the stage: "Is everybody OK?" And if Garvey seems a little unsteady himself from time to time, swaying on his knees and tripping over the occasional lyric, there is good reason. The man is drunk. "Oh, evenings like this are overwhelming, really," he will say afterwards. "If I didn't have a drink or two before the show, and, OK, another couple on stage [at one point between songs he mixes cocktails for the entire band], you'd hear it in my voice – the nerves, the terror." But he is learning, gradually, to overcome this. "We've been doing this for a long time now, 20 years.

To have reached a point where we know we are among friends is – well, it's nice, it's really nice." k Two weeks later, and Elbow are appearing on the BBC show Later with Jools Holland to promote their new single "Open Arms". It's the kind of unifying anthem they do so well, and one that will likely prove a highlight when they perform it at Glastonbury at the end of this month. Later... is filmed live, and the band are due on at 10.20pm, closing the show with a climactic performance featuring Manchester's Hallé Youth Choir on backing vocals. But there comes a problem. The act on before them is a seasoned old cove called McCoy Tyner, who, once his band get into the groove of their interminable jazzy noodle, don't know how to stop, and so they don't. They simply play on, Holland incapable of interrupting their flow. When the floor manager finally steps in to do so for him, the camera pans hurriedly over to Garvey, caught unawares and gaping, convinced that their slot has come and gone. He quickly composes himself, and the band hastily begin.

The fact that they are permitted to play their song in full very likely upsets Jeremy Paxman, whose Newsnight is delayed by four minutes as a result. Garvey is laughing afterwards. "We're used to cock-ups," he says. "They always seem to happen to us. In fact, for years we believed we were cursed. Whenever something was about to go right for us, it always seemed to go wrong instead..." The televisual cock-up is repeated just three weeks later. They are in New York where they have geared a week's worth of promotion around what many believe might just prove their tipping point in the US: an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. But the chat-show host's last guest runs over, and suddenly the credits are rolling. The producer breezes in to their dressing-room afterwards. "Sorry guys," he tells them. "Next time, OK?" If the band that first got together in 1991 had got rather used to the black curse, then they have also become acquainted with an abrupt reversal of fortunes of late. Since 2008, things have started to go right for Elbow, and everybody now, it seems, has a soft spot for them.

They are the People's Band, its frontman the recipient of the kind of plaudits once reserved for Stephen Fry. He blushes. "Ah, but that won't last. Pretty soon I'm sure it'll be: Guy Garvey? Gobshite." Elbow's evolution has been slow, and somewhat tortured. Though they formed while still at college, it wasn't until 2001 that they started releasing records, their music slow and melancholic, broody and sinister, and redolent of early Peter Gabriel and Talk Talk. They would never compete against Oasis for the number-one spot. Their first album, Asleep in the Back, was nominated for a Mercury Award. This, and its 2003 follow-up, Cast of Thousands, both shifted 150,000 copies and certified them, if nothing else, as cult stars. The rambunctious Leaders of the Free World (2005) was mooted by many as their major-league breakthrough – it contained songs that sounded like hit singles – but their then-record company imploded, taking them down with it. "It was touch-and-go for us after that," Garvey says.

"We were funding the next record ourselves, and we'd almost run out of money. We didn't even know whether it would see the light of day." But this is where their story became, in Garvey's words, "a fairytale". That record was The Seldom Seen Kid, whose songs quickly made their way out into the world in a manner previous songs hadn't. Soon after its release, GMTV's Lorraine Kelly – not previously considered an astute music tipster – publicly proclaimed a love of the album track "Mirrorball", and by the time "One Day Like This" was released as a single, its euphoric uplift soundtracking endless TV shows to the point where it became, ostensibly, our new national anthem, Elbow were a sensation. When he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show one Sunday morning, Garvey found himself cornered by another of that day's guests, the then-prime minister Gordon Brown, who also revealed an admiration for it. "Though he did call it 'On a Day Like This'," the singer points out. The Seldom Seen Kid went on to sell a million copies, and won that year's Mercury Prize. Two years on, and fifth album Build a Rocket Boys!

has cemented their position as one of the most loved bands of their generation. The sense of goodwill now coming their way, Garvey acknowledges, is palpable. "But I'd hate anyone to think I was pushing this genial, down-to-earth, working-class thing," he says, suddenly k anxious, and scratching at his whiskers, "because I'm not. We appreciate the goodwill; it's not lost on us. We are grateful for it, enormously. And until everybody does decide I'm a gobshite, we plan to enjoy it." Guy Garvey is 37 years old. He looks older; a big, bearded fellow with a careworn, lived-in face given to easy smiles. His demeanour is avuncular and genial, which is very anti-rock star, as is his dress sense. He rarely leaves home without his university-lecturer-like suit jacket, while his shoes, which look like hillwalkers, are unashamedly scuffed. He is an avid bird-watcher, and rolls his own cigarettes, which he smokes while wincing. We meet on a sunny day in Manchester in early May, in the beer garden of one of his favourite local pubs.

He is halfway through his second pint when I arrive. Elbow bassist Pete Turner is with him, but soon makes his excuses. He hugs his bandmate in farewell, and, because they very likely won't see one another until tomorrow, deposits a fond kiss to the top of his head. This is a very Elbow thing to do, a public display of fraternal kinship. It forms the basis of so many of their songs. "My mates have always hugged and kissed each other without any bashful awkwardness about it," Garvey points out. "I didn't realise that saying something like 'Love you, mate' in a song was particularly unusual or revolutionary until people started suggesting it was." When he was 13, Garvey, the son of a trade unionist and one of seven siblings, abruptly decided that schoolwork no longer suited him. And so he effectively downed tools. "At the time, I used my parents' divorce as an excuse," he says, "but I'm not sure how true that is. They were amazing parents; still are. But whatever the real reason, schoolwork stopped appealing to me." Far from the stereotypical bad lad, however, he didn't play truant.

"No, I still went to all my lessons, and I contributed in class, but I never did homework, never handed anything in." At 16, he was ready to quit education altogether, but his older sister thought otherwise, and enrolled him into the local college where he quickly gained a reputation as something of a show-off. He rarely passed up an opportunity to get up on stage and sing. Fellow students Mark Potter, Pete Turner and Richard Jupp asked him to join their fledgeling band, Mr Soft. Soon after Potter's brother Craig arrived on keyboards, they had rechristened themselves Elbow after a line in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective, in which "elbow" was pronounced one of the English language's most sensuous words. They then went about launching their career at a snail's pace, mostly happy to remain a tight, insular unit making the kind of music that pleased, first and foremost, themselves. "Did we ever imagine we'd break through?" Garvey wonders now. "Not really, no. I can still vividly remember supporting U2 at Wembley Stadium a couple of years ago in front of 90,000 people, and feeling convinced that there had been some kind of mistake.

Still do, in fact..." In a music world dominated by at least the illusion of skyscraping confidence, Garvey is notable for wearing his sensitivity on his sleeve, and for articulating it with uncommon grace. He thinks a lot, possibly too much, and as befits someone who appears older than his years, the theme that runs through Build a Rocket Boys! concerns the vagaries of ageing. He's not even 40, yet is already fearing middle age. "As you get older, different insecurities come to the fore," he ruminates. "One fear disappears, and another comes to take its place; you can only have a certain capacity for happiness, sadness, remorse and fear at any one time, and mine change all the time." A current worry is that, professional success aside, he might have become the kind of man his younger self would have sneered at. "My girlfriend [Emma Unsworth, a journalist turned full-time writer, whose debut novel is published this month] and I have just bought a house, with a little patch of land," he says. "We want to start a family.

It's the most important thing in my life right now, and that's a good thing, it definitely is, but at the same time I worry about it. I mean, is this what I've become? A useless suburbanite who talks about his new house, and who fears the younger generation because they go around in hoodies?" Until recently, he had harboured ambitions to up sticks and move to New York, but for various reasons has now decided to stay put. Like a particularly loyal dog, Garvey sees Manchester as his turf. When he strays, he becomes discomfited, lost. "I do like to be around friendly faces, it's true," he says, "and I get no bigger kick than hanging around with the people I've always hung around with. The rest of the band have kids already, and they are excellent, excellent fathers. Watching their kids grow up, and having a stake in their lives through association, is pretty overwhelming stuff. I wouldn't want to be apart from that. And we want to have a family here, now, in Manchester, nowhere else. That's why we've delayed New York. New York can wait.

It'll still be there when we're older." Besides, he has much else on his plate right now. In addition to the band, Garvey has a regular Sunday night slot on BBC 6 Music, and he has also started making documentaries for Radio 4. A recent one was entitled The Honest Musician's Fear of Accidental Plagiarism, prompted after he unwittingly lifted a line from somebody else's song and passed it off as his own (he later apologised to the artist in question, "and I bought him a pint to make up for it"), and another was called The Rainy City, in which he studied the relationship between Manchester's weather and its creative output. "I enjoy doing them, and would like to do more, but I've got to be careful," he says. How so? "Well, I saw that Nick Cave film recently, The Proposition [Cave scripted it]. I got to meet him shortly afterwards, and I told him I'd been anxious before seeing it. He asked me why. Well, I told him, I have a book of Lou Reed's photography, and it's shit. In other words, you've got to be careful not to do things just because you are allowed to.

There's no excuse for making dross. I wouldn't ever want to do that." It is early evening now, and Garvey must leave. He has a dinner party to prepare, something his younger self would no doubt consider a typically useless suburbanite thing to do. It is still warm and sunny in the beer garden, and so as he stands, he slips on a pair of sunglasses. Earlier, he had admitted that he has difficulty wearing sunglasses in Manchester, suggestive, as they can be to others, of someone who has developed ideas above their station. "The last time I put them on here I was with my sister," he'd said. "She stopped in her tracks, laughed, and told me to take them off straight away." Recalling this now, he swiftly removes them before anyone sees him, and replaces them back in his pocket. He goes home squinting into the sun. His sister would be proud. 'Build a Rocket Boys!' is available now on Fiction.

Elbow play Glastonbury on 25 June More about: BBC Radio 6 Music - Guy Garvey's Finest Hour - Guy Garvey BBC Radio 6 Music Guy Garvey Hear Guy, Sunday, 2-4pm (repeated Monday mornings, midnight-2am) Guy Garvey, singer, songwriter, lyricist, radio producer, raconteur and general all round good bloke has been the lead singer of Elbow for twenty years. Formed whilst at college in Bury, Elbow famously took over ten years to find a record deal and then promptly lost it following the Universal take-over of Island. The band found a new home and went on to release the Mercury Award nominated Asleep In The Back (2001) alongside picking up a nomination at the Brits for Best New Band. Second album, Cast Of Thousands (2003) secured the band afurther critical and commercial success whilst third album Leaders Of The Free World cemented Elbow's position as one of the UK's most thoughtful and innovative acts.

Over those three albums, Guy Garvey has become a hugely popular figure in the music industry with artists of the calibre of John Cale admiring both the band's music and Guy's lyrics and exceptional singing voice. Guy has also performed live and on record with I Am Kloot (whose debut album he produced), Richard Hawley and Frank Black amongst others. Never one to shirk from voicing his thoughts, Guy has been rightly praised for his forthright stance on a variety of political issues with Elbow putting their money where their mouth is by supporting the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) amongst others. In true Renaissance Man style, whilst other members of his band have been adding to the Elbow fanbase by becoming parents, Guy has started a very successful second career as a radio presenter: "My love affair with radio began with John Peel when I was 12. I'm very proud of my show and my BBC security pass is probably my prize possession".

Elbow frontman Guy Garvey 'drunkenly reveals title of new album' | Metro News Elbow frontman Guy Garvey ‘drunkenly reveals title of new album’ metrowebukmetro Thursday 23 Dec 2010 8:44 am Guy Garvey, the lead singer of rock band Elbow, claimed he was ‘in terrible trouble’ after drunkenly revealing the name of the band’s new album. Scolded: Elbow singer Guy Garvey ‘drunkenly’ revealed the name of the band’s new album (Pic: PA) Making an appearance on Marc Riley’s 6 Music show, the Bury-born frontman, 36, accidentally revealed that Elbow’s upcoming album will be entitled Build A Rocket, Boys! The album will be released in March, and is the follow up to the Mercury Award winning Seldom Seen Kid, released in 2008. Garvey admitted that he was berated by his record company after he let the title slip by accident. He told6 Music: ‘I’m in terrible trouble.

I got drunk and announced on air the title of the album, under the influence of old mild Guinness.’ Elbow’s new album, Build A Rocket Boys! He also claimed that fans of the band would find out soon enough, anyway, and it wasn’t any use keeping it a secret much longer. ‘You can’t really keep secrets from Elbow fans for very long, anyway,’ he said. He added: ‘They’re an industrious bunch. They find things out.’ Garvey also took time to explain some of the central themes behind the much-anticipated album, with much of it to do with the area he grew up in. He said: ‘Because I’ve moved back to an old neighbourhood, where I spent my early to late teens, I’ve been remembering that period of my life in great detail. ‘I live on a street I used to play on when I was 14. That’s what the album is about – the years I spent here growing up. The difficulties of it and the great things about it, too.’ More Guy Garvey - Courting The Squall - Uncut TAGS: Elbow It’s a quarter of a century since five friends from Bury formed a band called Elbow.

Since then – and unusually for a group with such longevity – there have been no bust-ups or walkouts, no discernible aggro beyond, possibly, who should get the next round in. Instead they have presented an unbesmirched picture of northern grafters whose slow path to glory has been navigated with grace and equanimity. At the centre of it all is Guy Garvey, a lugubrious yet sweetly affable frontman who hardly passes for a pop star but has nevertheless risen to become something of a national treasure. A contributing factor is his BBC 6 Music radio show where his love for his job seeps from the speakers, and during which he touchingly introduces himself as “Guy Garvey, the lead singer from Elbow”, just in case any listeners are still struggling to place him. It’s with similar self-deprecation that he has described his first solo effort as “a vanity project”, a self-conscious nod to the many ego-fluffing excursions of frontmen past. Courting The Squall is, he says, the result of a long-held desire to temporarily shake off the constraints (and conflicting opinions) of a five-piece band. It’s an experiment to see how he fares on his own.

That is not to say that Garvey has fallen out of love with Elbow, or that he has temporarily lost his mind and indulged a lifelong yearning to make an album of Tuvan throat singing. This solo work is still recognisably his, yet it is leaner, more intimate and a little rough around the edges. While his way with a melody is as keen as ever, this isn’t about the rousing tunes or ticker tape moments. There are no massed voices or orchestras for added emotional sway. If Garvey has an audience in mind, it’s not the vast crowds to which he has become accustomed but small gatherings in backrooms and basement dives. Where he exhorted us to “throw those curtains wide” in Elbow’s masterpiece “One Day Like This”, here he seems to be inviting us to draw them shut, pull up a chair and pour ourselves a glass of wine. It’s no surprise to discover that the album was recorded swiftly and with minimal overdubs; the whole project has a deliberately unstudied and, at times, semi-improvised atmosphere. Illustrative of the looser vibe is the opener “Angela’s Eyes”, apparently informed by his burgeoning interest in Afrobeat.

It begins with shuffling drums and twanging, atonal stabs of guitar over which Garvey reflects, in unvarnished voice, on his attempts at self-examination (“I’ve been looking for my truth since God was a boy”). Indeed, there’s an eclecticism here that you’d struggle to find on an Elbow record. “Electricity” is a smoky, sensuous homage to ’30s New York jazz, with guest vocals from Jolie Holland. Here you sense a man joyfully dabbling in alternative eras and genres without ever straying from the sweet melancholia at which he has become so adept. On “Juggernaut”, Garvey slips back into older, more familiar territory, homing into on the humdrum (“cursed in the folly of a three-dollar brolly”) while dispensing bruised wisdoms. There’s an Elbow-esque quality, too, in the piano arrangement of “Yesterday” which has shades of a John Barry film soundtrack, and which suffuses the song with a melodrama that is mostly absent elsewhere. Lyrically, as ever, Garvey’s skill lies in combining romantic poeticism with sandpaper wit.

In the title track, against gentle washes of harp, he bemoans the distance, both physically and emotionally, from a partner: “You’re out with a friend in the capital, I’m a thousand leagues under the sea/You’re hovering worriedly over your eggs and I’m pondering trees.” This sense of a man out of step with the world is, of course, a recurring theme for Garvey. Going solo may be a new dawn for a singer looking to try something new but, in his case, there’s no getting away from himself. Q&A How scary was it to be making an album without the security blanket of a band? The lads’ opinions were always in my mind but there are many areas where Elbow’s tastes don’t meet. So it was exciting to try new things and in the end I didn’t consider the record finished until they had all heard it and loved it. Five songwriters working together means each decision is pored over, which is what makes Elbow’s music so intricate, often challenging and ultimately very grand. This record was made quickly and impulsively and it feels a bit more from the hip as a result. Vanity project is precisely the right phrase.

Could you throw some light on the album’s title? In the context of the song it is taken from, it’s a gentle way of telling a friend that their reckless social pursuits are bordering on self-harm. It means prodding the bear, gently inviting danger. As an album title, going solo was pretty nerve-racking. Elbow’s music has always been very well received and I didn’t know if I was capable of a making a good album on my own. To what extent were you trying to make a record that didn’t sound like an Elbow record? One of the first compliments I had on the record was from Tim Young who mastered it. He has mastered Elbow records for years, so he is a reliable benchmark. He said ‘I like this album Guy, it doesn’t sound like Elbow but not self-consciously so.’ That’s exactly the tightrope I was trying to walk. INTERVIEW: FIONA STURGES Review: Guy Garvey - 'Courting The Squall' | NBHAP Courting The Squall 08. Belly Of The Whale 09. Broken Bottles And Chandeliers 10.

Three Bells The ‘anti-stadium-rockstar’ Some things just need time. After years of steady climbing up the ladder of success, British alternative rockers ELBOW finally managed to become a steady institution when it comes to epic and high quality symphonic stadium anthems; especially in their home country. Lead singer GUY GARVEY had a big part in that success. The charismatic frontman with the distinctive and tender voice always works as the emotional guidance in those ambitious songs, acting like a soulful lighthouse to the lost listener. GARVEY never aimed to be the perfect frontman as there has always been something quirky about him. He’s not Chris Martin; he’s just a bloke you’ll likely meet at your local pup at 2pm in the morning, debating on the ups and downs of life. With his solo debut Courting The Squall, the ELBOW singer finally dedicated that person a full-length record, after hinting it with his band for years. Meeting at midnight Courting The Squall lets the odd man break out. The 41-year old Mancunian delivers a gentle record that aims exactly for that dark scenery we were all assuming anyway.

The title-track, for example, sees GARVEY singing over a tender melody while he his supported by a gentle harp. Tracks like Unwind or the truly beautiful Juggernaut continue that path. The second one unfolds itself like a nightly waltz over an empty street in Manchester, while we are slowly taking away by its floating character. Courting The Squall represents the tenderer and intimate aspects in the musical microcosm of the singer, something that has always been present in the music of ELBOW . Still, in his gentle weirdness, the album echoes the earlier work of his band a bit more. ‘All my darkest dreams come swimming into focus’ sings the Brit riding over a sweet piano melody in Yesterday that could also be taken from Asleep In The Back, the 2001 debut of his band. Introducing the odd bar singer Still, the debut album by GUY GARVEY allows him a few musical adventures that wouldn’t work in the ELBOW setting. The joyful brass section in Harder Edges maybe or the pumping dirty blues of the lead single Angela’s Eyes.

Electricity, a duet with American folk singer Jolie Holland, is a dark jazz-infected ballad and far away from the usual territory of the artist. Yes, we can totally see him as the slightly drunken singer in a run-down piano bar. And that’s a compliment. Maybe Broken Bottles with its gospel choir is the closest attempt to a familiar ELBOW anthem although it’s still light years away from One Day Like This. On Courting The Squall GUY GARVEY does what the best for him anyway: He gives his voice the space to explore all sorts of different territories while still remaining the constant in all this haze. The closing track in the form of the tender lullaby Three Bells underlines that strength. This is how a solo debut should be: familiar but also new and exciting. With such a likely protagonist it couldn’t look any easier. Courting The Squall allows GUY GARVEY to explore music territory that is a bit more off and edgy while still sticking close to his well-known qualities.

— Courting The Squall by Guy Garvey | Album Review | The Line Of Best Fit Get it on: iTunes Amazon The scenario of a lead singer breaking free from their successful group in order to record a solo album has been around since the nascent days of pop music. It’s a risky, vulnerable move that causes fans of the band to worry about whether the group is breaking up, and leaves listeners rigidly judging the new material in comparison to the original songs they hold dear. In the case of Guy Garvey ’s debut solo record, Courting the Squall, the Elbow frontman has assembled a loose but penetrating collection of songs that highlight his insightful lyrics and warm vocals, as well as a cracking band of friends (featuring I Am Kloot bassist Pete Jobson, the Whip’s Nathan Sudders on guitar, along with keyboardist Ben Christophers and drummer Alex Reeves) whom Guy refers to as his “favorite musicians outside Elbow.” But fans apparently don’t need to worry about the state of Elbow – they are doing just fine, thank you – while Garvey gives them plenty to take pleasure in with these 10 refined songs that should serve as an elegant stopgap between albums from Guy’s beloved main band.

There is a jazzy, Speakeasy feel to songs like "Angela’s Eyes", "Yesterday", and "Electricity" (augmented by guest vocals from Jolie Holland), while “Belly of the Whale” takes on a swinging, Morphine-like pulse, giving the album a distinctive vibe and spirit wholly separate – but complimentary to – Garvey’s previous output. The familiar, contemplative ballads are here as well, as the title track finds the subject pondering trees and where his life is rooted, while the muted lullabies of "Broken Bottles and Chandeliers" and "Three Bells" will surely resonate with those longtime listeners who have been moved by Garvey’s deft ability to weave his heart into his lyrics. Courting the Squall is a collection of songs from a musician unencumbered by expectation or industry pressure, just Guy Garvey recording a bunch of tunes with his friends and seeing where his muse leads them. That free spirit gives his poignant solo material a fresh buoyancy that still sounds intimate, due to his estimable songwriting gifts and the band’s ability to not overthink these compositions and just let the musical magic happen naturally.

Read next Elbow's Guy Garvey admits to using teleprompter at gigs | Gigwise Elbow's Guy Garvey admits to using teleprompter at gigs Singer struggles to remember lyrics to new material Photo: WENN.com Elbow's lead singer Guy Garvey has admitted he needs a teleprompter during gigs to help him remember his own lyrics. Garvey appeared on Absolute Radio alongside the band's bassist Pete Turner, where they were interviewed by DJ Geoff Lloyd. When asked about their new material, Garvey admitted that he needs a little helps with the words. The singer admitted: "There are still plenty of mistakes. I've still not learnt all my lyrics yet, I've got a teleprompt. It has become a little bit of a habit; I used to mock older front men for having them. But now if I haven't got the teleprompter, I start panicking and forget my words.

Two and a half thousand words the last album was." Watch the new video for Elbow's 'New York Morning' below The band also discussed how their distinctly British lyrics often struggle to translate abroad, saying, "We like putting little colloquialisms in, especially if they're not gonna make sense to people who don't know the phrase... We had to explain Lippy Kids abroad, what 'lippy' means. 'Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl', nobody outside this country pronounces Rochdale 'Rochdale'. They say 'Rockdale'." Elbow released their sixth album The Take Off And Landing Of Everything earlier this year, and embark on an eight-date arena tour in April. Look out for autocues. For more information, visit Gigwise Gig Tickets. Guy Garvey: 'I'd like to be beheaded in Game of Thrones' - Telegraph Glastonbury Guy Garvey: 'I'd like to be beheaded in Game of Thrones' Good, old-fashioned songwriting has helped make Guy Garvey and his band Elbow the stars of Glastonbury. Would he give it all up for a part in the hit fantasy series?

Elbow's lead singer and songwriter Guy Garvey Photo: Rick Pushinsky By Craig McLean 11:00AM BST 22 Jun 2014 Guy Garvey, the singer and lyricist with Elbow, fresh from a sell-out American tour, has travelled from his Manchester home to London for lunch in a Fitzrovia fish restaurant. Tomorrow this much-loved band’s much-loved frontman is due at the BBC to record an appearance on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. He has the selections sorted. But Garvey is swithering over the object: a Second World War picture of his ­grandfather, or a silver cigarette case that belonged to the late friend who inspired Elbow’s Mercury Prize-winning album The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)? First up, though, is a meeting with a casting agent. After the chart triumphs and the prizes (there was also the 2009 Brit for best British group, plus two Ivor Novellos, one of which was for Elbow’s signature feelgood anthem One Day Like This), does Garvey yearn for the actor’s life?

READ: Why Gerry Goffin was a songwriting genius “I’m toying with the idea,” he nods as he settles down with the menu. Given the preponderance of character actors and northern accents in Game of Thrones (Sean Bean, Mark Addy, the entire House Stark), surely there’s a part for him in HBO’s hit drama? Related Articles The 100 best Glastonbury performances ever 16 Jun 2015 “Well, that’d be great, wouldn’t it?” 40-year-old Garvey ponders with a ruminative rub at his stubble and an admission of a lingering hangover. “But I think my brother would have something to say about that – he’s been a professional actor for many years. He’d probably kick my head in.” Marcus Garvey has appeared in Broadchurch and Last Tango in Halifax, and was what his older sibling describes as “the affable policeman” in Chris Morris’s jihadist satire Four Lions. So, the Garveys as hench-brothers battling Thrones’ soft southern Lannisters? “That’s what I would angle for,” he says, smiling. “Like I say, I’m just toying with it.

I want to know if I’m any good. You’ve got to be careful, haven’t you?” Rhetorical questions are a conversational tic of his, but they are inclusive rather than challenging. “Game of Thrones would be the fun thing to do. Some of my contemporaries have done it already,” he adds, mentioning Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Jónsi from Sigur Rós, “and Will from Coldplay was drumming at the Red Wedding. But my thinking is, ‘I do not want to be a minstrel! Can I be beheaded or something, so I can keep my plaster-cast head?’ ” Equally, the idea of being a voice actor on radio appeals. After all, Garvey’s BBC 6 Music show has made him a popular presence on the station over the past seven years. “And I met Bill Nighy recently,” he continues, “and he’s just fantastic at that stuff. But you do have to be careful. I’ve managed to get away with a career in radio alongside what’s going on with Elbow.” His mindfulness is hard won.

This band formed by friends at Bury College almost a quarter of a century ago endured all sorts of one-step-forward-two-steps-back record label traumas in their first dozen or so years. Commercial and critical success only came with The Seldom Seen Kid, Elbow’s fourth album, and its standout track, One Day Like This. But now they’re up there: a big-selling national-treasure-meets-cult outfit. Imagine Alan Bennett writing for the house band at the Rovers Return (but with festival-sized melodies). It’s why this month Elbow are the highest-placed British band on the main Pyramid Stage on Glastonbury’s opening night, second only to headliners Arcade Fire . So, yes, this taproom philosopher and overgrown choirboy is thrust front and centre into the spotlight. But Garvey promises not to attempt any extra-curricular ventures that might jeopardise the sacred faith in the music shared by himself and his bandmates: brothers Mark (guitar) and Craig Potter (keyboards), Pete Turner (bass) and Richard Jupp (drums).

“No, I wouldn’t do anything that the lads weren’t happy with – if they thought it was daft.” Which means the rest of Elbow must have sanctioned their dulcet-voiced frontman’s appearance on CBeebies reading a bedtime story, Mr Big by Ed Vere. Guy Garvey with his fellow band members in Elbow (Rick Pushinsky) And, equally, they were comfortable with their lyricist sharing his skills with Robert del Naja of Massive Attack. The pair have co-written songs for a stage musical about King Kong. That’s right, a stage musical. About King Kong. “Rob and I both laughed at the idea,” he says of the production that recently premiered in Melbourne and may transfer to Broadway . “I thought it would be fun; something I’ve never tried.” The show’s musical director is producer-composer Marius de Vries (Coldplay, Pet Shop Boys), an old friend and collaborator of Garvey’s. He used one Garvey-del Naja composition, Red Light, “and they were short of another whole song, so the director got in touch.

And I found it very, very simple,” he shrugs of his remit: to write a song, Grasping at Nothing, for the character of Jack. “He’s the romantic lead, but no one remembers him ’cause he gets overshadowed by the monkey.” What, though, of his other literary interests? Has he read George R R Martin’s epic Game of Thrones source novels? No he has not. Garvey says that he is “not a huge reader”. If he does read, it’s short stories. “I’m quite a thorough reader, so I just can’t digest books. And if I find time to read I usually see it as time to write.” It’s an admission that will surprise fans drawn in by his lyrical acuity, an empathetic, uplifting and emotive skill at its finest on Elbow’s current, number-one album, The Take Off and Landing of Everything . Which prompts the question: where does that skill come from? “Listening to other songwriters is part of it,” he replies. Thus we might note his Desert Island Discs: he mentions songs by Talk Talk, Jolie Holland, Joan As Police Woman and Joni Mitchell. “But also, I’m a good learner.

So what I have read I’ve digested very, very thoroughly. I’m the kid that used to take the radio apart – I need to know how things work. I don’t watch films and completely 100 per cent ever suspend my disbelief. I’m thinking, ‘How was it made?’ “I remember dialogue pretty much word-for-word. I’m probably on the spectrum somewhere,” he says brightly. “A lot of musicians are. And because of the way I write – i.e., all the time – I’m pulling out phrases I wrote 10, 15 years ago sometimes. It comes from all over the place.” For years Garvey carried around a journal for jotting all his lyrical ideas. Other favourite writing tools: beer mats, receipts, the shirt pocket into which he shoves scraps of ideas born of an alcohol-fuelled conversation in the pub. But these days he uses an electronic notepad. It’s a necessity born of catastrophe – he once lost a journal during a drunken London trip that ended up “in an illegal Spanish drinking den” – but it also allows Garvey to key in the words in large type, so he can read them on stage if need be.

He doesn’t clarify whether this is to do with failing memory or failing eyesight. And yet: Garvey is a firm believer in the power of the written word. In 2011 he campaigned to save his local library from closure. Does he fear for the printed page? “Yeah,” he nods, “yeah. But having the awful experience of losing that journal, the practicality of having everything backed up every time I walk in my house just outweighs it, really. But no, I do miss the pen and the page. You know,” Garvey says, embarking on one of his anecdotal detours, “I was thinking the other day I’d really like to design some stationery. Is that sad? I really like luggage and stationery.” I’m about to suggest that he writes to Smythson. Surely the high-end stationer would love to be associated with Elbow, just like the BBC (the band wrote the broadcaster’s Olympics theme), and Stockport brewer Robinsons (it did an Elbow beer), and the Hallé symphony orchestra (they performed with the foursome at the Manchester International Festival).

Then I remember that the company’s one-time creative director (and current part-time consultant) is Samantha Cameron, wife of David. And Guy Garvey is very much anti-Conservative. Elbow’s new album is more personal than political, but Garvey flags a key song, The Blanket of Night. “It’s the only firm political statement on the record. There’s a little bit of ridicule of the prime minister elsewhere, but that song is sympathising with refugees, and pointing out how there’s a crisis happening – kindness is missing from every political party as far as refugees are concerned. It’s appalling. It’s really cruel to treat people who are begging for your help like they’re coming for your gold. And the way they’re ghettoised doesn’t help at all.” A scene from the new musical King Kong, which features songs by Garvey (Rex) And what about the North-South divide? Does he think it has widened under the Coalition? “Yeah,” he states flatly. “We always get sacked. But it’s not even the North. It’s those who care the most for other people in society, they’re always the ones that get hit by the Tories, ’cause they want to privatise everything.

“My friend Nicky – five-foot-nothing goth chick – she chose to work with the most difficult kids in Manchester. Her in a unit with 6ft killers, crazy lads. And it got shut down ’cause of the cuts. Then everyone was surprised when the riots kicked off. They’re the most disenfranchised members of society. They’re not afraid of prison ’cause life’s a prison.” Manchester and its people – its community – are shot through Guy Garvey like the writing in a stick of rock. The older he gets, the farther he travels, the more it broadens and thickens within him. “It’s part of my story,” he says simply. “Mancs are generally quite proud of what they’ve got. Manchester’s symbol is the worker bee. That’s the mentality. And it’s the only thing I’ve ever considered having tattooed on my body. “My father was very, very civically proud; my grandfather, too. He used to take me to the [Manchester Central] Library and say, ‘That’s yours; you own every book in it. Don’t let ’em take it off you.’ ” Garvey is the product of a working-class home.

He grew up the second-youngest of seven, his father a newspaper proofreader and union rep at Robert Maxwell’s Mirror Group, his mother a policewoman and later a psychologist. They split when he was 12. Does he have to call himself middle class these days? “Good point. I try and avoid the subject,” he says, chuckling, “but very definitely I am middle class. I’ve paid half my mortgage off. So yeah, I’m chuffed. But no, it doesn’t worry me – I’m not really classist in that way. I know great people of all classes. And equally I know people of all classes who are thoroughly miserable.” Still, in his songs Garvey is no table-thumping polemicist. He applies fun, and invention, to his political thoughts. One of the new album’s finest lyrical images is of a “chinless prefect gone Godzilla”. Garvey admits it was inspired by David Cameron. And he allows that he’s pleased with the image, and also with the internal rhyme structure. “Yeah, I wish I knew its name!” he laughs, then mentions his friend, the poet Simon Armitage. “He’s always telling me what I’ve done technically!

Actually, he’s a great help. I ­often tap him up for ideas. Not actual words – I just say, ‘I’ve been writing about this, and it put this in mind; can you think of anything similar that I can go and look at and research?’ “It’s the same,” he adds, “with my ex.” Garvey’s former partner is Emma Jane Unsworth, a novelist and former journalist. They were together for almost 10 years before splitting while Garvey was writing The Take Off and Landing of Everything . The break-up explains the predominantly personal lyrical arc of the album. This Blue World, the album opener, documents the start, middle and end of the relationship. “And it looks into the future, as well. And I’ve been writing that song for a long time, without knowing what I was writing about. ’Cause the split broadsided both of us – we both realised at the same time that we didn’t want to be together anymore. So it was sad – and also,” he smiles, “the cat tried to jump out of the top window at that moment.

We were both in tears and were both like, ‘Not now!’ ” Their split seems to be entirely functional, or as functional as the end of decade-long relationships can be. They have no children − the rest of Elbow are fathers − but there has been some kind of custody battle. “We have a line in common: ‘The way the day begins decides the shade of everything.’ It starts one of the chapters in her new book [Animals], and I use it in our song New York Morning. Neither of us can remember who wrote it! I think it’s mine; she thinks it’s hers. It’s quite cute, having joint custody of an idea.” The couple are still friends, he insists, and he also insists that he’s happy in his singledom. “Absolutely. I love where I’m at, as I’ve hit 40. Lots of questions, but I’ve addressed ’em all and got a good record out of it! And as a band we very much are family and behave that way. It’s not like I’m a lonely man walking the Earth.

I want to see how much work I can do before I slide off the plate.” Accordingly this cheerfully workaholic and unassuming rock star is up “at the crack of sparrow” each morning, and is at his job all day, every day. “I give myself a hard time,” he says of his approach to his songwriting. “I never feel like I’m doing enough; that’s my only frustration. But yeah, I have very simple pleasures. I love a drink, I love a chat, and I love music.” This, then, is Guy Garvey: a straightforward man with sky-high ambition and soul-deep conviction. Like his father and grandfather – newspaper proofreaders both – he’s a craftsman with words. It’s about shaping and perfecting every sentiment and syllable, the better to communicate with the masses. If you’ve ever heard their song One Day Like This blaring from your radio or (better still) from a stage, you’ll have a sense of the ecstatic communion Elbow’s music can generate. And so to Glastonbury. The band’s most recent appearance at the Somerset festival was in 2011.

Elbow were second to Coldplay on the Pyramid stage, and Garvey had tens of thousands of people engaging in a “reverse Mexican wave”: crouched on their haunches. At the time the singer called it the band’s best-ever show. “It still is,” he says now. Although it was immediately followed by their worst: drinking deep of the Glastonbury spirit, the band caroused through the night, and messed up their next evening’s engagement, in Luxembourg. So what are Elbow planning for this year’s main-stage appearance? Garvey grimaces. “We’ve been trying to think of stunts but we’ve got nowt… So we’ll probably just do the same s--- again!” At least they have One Day Like This in their back pocket. Play that as their customary singalong encore and it’s job resolutely done. “Well, we’ve been pondering not doing that, actually. We were thinking of maybe ending with My Sad Captains [a song from the new album]. What do you think?” Now it’s my turn to grimace.

I tell Garvey that perhaps Glastonbury isn’t the place to be playing fast and loose with a rabid – and possibly discombobulated – audience’s expectations. People love One Day Like This, the “throw those curtains wide” singalong especially. He gives a hearty laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.” It’s a moment of togetherness, that song. It’s very ­ Glastonbury. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says again. “OK, maybe something’s got to happen during it… A special guest… I’ll get my celebrity black book out. Timothy Spall?” he suggests, with a wink. ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’ (Fiction) is out now.

Elbow play Glastonbury on Friday 27 June, Pyramid Stage, 8pm; glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ Elbow’s Guy Garvey Announces Debut Solo Album - Stereogum Elbow’s Guy Garvey Announces Debut Solo Album Gabriela Tully Claymore @gabrielajunetc | September 16, 2015 - 10:16 am Share < br />this article: Elbow released a new four-song EP back in July, and today, the band’s lead singer and guitarist Guy Garvey announced that he’s putting out a solo album later this year. Courting The Squall is Garvey’s debut, and it will be released on 10/30. Garvey posted the following message to his Facebook page: Elbow graciously gave me some time to write a solo album. I’ve wanted to try for years and I’m really proud of it. “Solo” because I wrote everything but I was far from alone. I invited my favourite players outside of elbow (many of them also my favourite people) and we moved fast, drank a lot and had what can only be described as a massive laugh along the way.

The album’s first single is titled “Angela’s Eyes,” and though it’s currently unavailable in US stores, fans in the UK will receive an automatic download if they preorder Courting The Squall now. Check out Garvey’s tour dates below. Tour dates:

Question: Guy Garvey is the lead vocalist of which band?
Answer: Elbow